The arithmetic
Three numbers, none of them wrong
Three different numbers describe the size of Dholera, and they do not agree with each other. None of them is wrong. They measure different things, and this page shows the arithmetic instead of picking one.
The 2009 order declares the region to be 879.3377 sq km. The 2012 Development Plan lists six town planning schemes whose areas add up to 422.42 sq km. And the authority's own public description says about 920 sq km.
The gap between the first two is 456.9177 sq km, which is not a rounding error. It means the documented schemes cover about 48 per cent of the region, and the rest of it is not inside any scheme this site can show you.
No document we hold explains any of this, so this page does not reconcile it. It sets the numbers next to each other, names the document each one comes from, and leaves the difference visible.
The three numbers, side by side
| Figure | Value | Unit | As at | Where it comes from | Tag |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The region, as declared | 879.3377 | sq km | 22 May 2009 | gazette_mirror.pdf p.1, the 2009 notification | OFFICIAL |
| The six scheme areas, added up | 422.42 | sq km | 10 September 2012 | our arithmetic on the six rows of dp_report1.pdf p.183 | DERIVED |
| The difference between them | 456.9177 | sq km | not applicable | our arithmetic on the two rows above | DERIVED |
| The authority's public description | about 920 | sq km | as mirrored | about.html, mirror of the DSIRDA about page | OFFICIAL |
The 2009 notification fixes the SIR at 879.3377 sq km. DSIRDA/NICDC current publicity says "about 920 sq. kms". Both are reproduced here as published; this dataset does not reconcile them. The village COUNT is 22 in both.
The arithmetic, shown in full
| Scheme | Area, sq km | Share of the region, % | How the source describes it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scheme 2 | 102.34 | 11.64 | approx (source column header reads 'AREA IN SQ KM. (APPROX.)') |
| Scheme 5 | 74.75 | 8.50 | approx (source column header reads 'AREA IN SQ KM. (APPROX.)') |
| Scheme 6 | 67.33 | 7.66 | approx (source column header reads 'AREA IN SQ KM. (APPROX.)') |
| Scheme 3 | 66.60 | 7.57 | approx (source column header reads 'AREA IN SQ KM. (APPROX.)') |
| Scheme 4 | 60.00 | 6.82 | approx (source column header reads 'AREA IN SQ KM. (APPROX.)') |
| Scheme 1 | 51.40 | 5.85 | approx (source column header reads 'AREA IN SQ KM. (APPROX.)') |
| The six added up | 422.42 | 48.04 | our arithmetic |
| Not in any documented scheme | 456.92 | 51.96 | our arithmetic |
Two of the eight schemes, 2/A and 4/A, have no area at all in our documents and so contribute nothing to this sum. If they cover land that is not already counted in schemes 1 to 6, the true covered figure is higher than the one above, and nothing we hold says whether they do.
Four reasons the numbers could differ
Reasonable explanations exist for a gap like this. None of them is stated in any document we hold, so all four are set out here as possibilities and none as a finding.
- A scheme area and a notified area may simply measure different things: the land being reorganised, against the land brought under the authority.
- Schemes may cover only the parts of the region being developed first, leaving the rest for later schemes not yet drawn.
- The planning areas are labelled approximate on the source table itself, so they were never meant to reconcile to four decimal places.
- The 920 sq km figure may include land added after 2009, or may be a rounded description rather than a measurement. Nothing states which.
This site does not choose between these. It records that the documents disagree, which is a more useful thing to know than a confident reconciliation somebody invented. The register of everything this site calculates rather than quotes is on the method page.
The other discrepancy, much smaller
There is a second, tiny disagreement inside the 2009 order itself. Add up the area column village by village and you get a figure 0.0002 sq km away from the total printed at the foot of the same table.
Every cell was read again at high resolution and no misreading was found, so the difference is in the printed gazette. Both numbers are reproduced exactly as printed and neither has been adjusted to make the table tidy.
The full check, column by column, is on the village register and on the survey numbers page.
Other questions answered here
- 01What do the words on a scheme sheet actually mean?Every term used on these documents, in one sentence of plain English, with the document that carries it.
- 02Who signs off a town planning scheme, and in what order?The stages a scheme passes through, the bodies that sign each one, and the two Dholera sanctions that exist in writing.
- 03My village is in a scheme. Is all of it in?Every scheme sheet says part villages. What that means, and why no document says how much of your village is inside.
- 04What is a survey number, and how many does my village have?The unit the whole record is counted in, and all 14,574 of them across the twenty two villages.